Author Archives: Michelle Garren-Flye

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About Michelle Garren-Flye

I am an author of romance, poetry, children's books and graphic novels. I also own a bookstore. My love of the written word runs deep.

Good-bye Dixie

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ImageI had another post in mind for today, but my family had to say good-bye to a special friend and I felt she deserved a spot here. Dixie  was the first cat I could ever claim as my own, although I inherited and loved another one from my husband. She was eighteen years old this year. The reason I can remember so well is because my husband and I adopted her shortly after we returned from our honeymoon in June of 1995. I was very excited. We already had my husband’s cat, Woody, but Dixie was our first baby together.

As such, she needed an apt name. We had just been to Disney World for our honeymoon (another first for me), and I was still very much caught up in the magic of it. While there, we stayed at Dixie Landings, a Disney resort that has since been renamed. I loved that magical stay. I didn’t have to worry about anything. No car trouble, no work at a job I hated, no bills I couldn’t afford to pay or laundry I needed to do or noisy neighbors. Nothing but me and my husband. I loved every minute of it.

And so, when we got back and found the kitten I wanted to adopt, we named her Dixie.

Dixie was the cat of my dreams. Spunky and sweet from the very beginning, she even charmed Woody, who was a tiger in every other respect. But he and Dixie loved each other right up until he died six years ago. Since then, Dixie has shown her age a little. Don’t get me wrong. She was a queen right up until the end. Even today when I sat beside her expecting each breath to be her last, she was regal. Beautiful.

Good-bye, my tri-colored beauty, my muse, my confidante and companion. I’ll miss you.

What is at the heart of Where the Heart Lies

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I’ve been concentrating so much on promoting Ducks in a Row recently, I’ve neglected my other book Where the Heart Lies, so I wanted to refresh your memory and mine about this book, which was, really, my first foray into the world of women’s fiction, even if it is classified as contemporary romance.

At its heart, Where the Heart Lies is a story about second chances. For military widow Alicia, for her husband Ty’s parents, for guilt-ridden and besotted Liam, for single mother Penny, for Penny’s fatherless daughter and for Alicia and Ty’s children. Even the bookstore Alicia takes over from her ailing father-in-law finds new life. I wrote this book because I believe in second chances for all of us. Remember the old adage about a window opening when a door closes? Sometimes we may feel like fate has screwed us over, but in the end, I hope we all find our way to the window that opened when the door slammed in our faces.

This is an excerpt from the beginning of Where the Heart Lies, available in ebook format from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Carina Press.

Where the Heart Lies copyTy lay his hand on her still flat belly. “It’s the perfect place to raise children. Boys and girls. There’s a pond for fishing and swimming. And the street is pretty quiet, so they can ride their bikes. The house is the perfect size—not too big. Just homey.”

Alicia laughed and rolled over, and his hand slid across her belly to her hip. “You might be a little prejudiced considering it’s your childhood home.”

He pulled her closer, kissing her, and her body responded to him as she always did. She loved his long, lean form and the way he touched her with such confidence. She drew away after a moment, unable to resist teasing him a little. “Are you sure it won’t be a little, um, inhibiting for you?”

“What do you mean?” He looked at her, uncomprehending, his hands caressing the backs of her thighs now, causing little rivers of pleasure to run through her veins.

She smiled wickedly at him, using all her self-control to keep from letting him know how pleasant his touch was. All part of the game. “Well, you know, being in the same bedroom your parents were in when they—oh, you know…”

He laughed and rolled over on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and kissing her firmly and thoroughly. His lips left hers and trailed over her jaw and down her collarbone as he cupped her breasts. She gasped at his touch on her sensitive nipples and felt his mouth curve. His lips returned to her neck and he nibbled her earlobe. “Baby, as long as you’re there, I won’t have any trouble being inhibited,” he whispered.

Chapter One

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Alicia Galloway pulled her minivan into the driveway of her new home. The last time those words had popped into
her head had been the day Ty’s CO placed a neatly folded triangle of red, white and blue silk into her hands, and she knew the rest of her life wouldn’t be with her husband. She remembered staring at the flag, thinking about its thirteen symbolic folds.

Fold one is for life, fold two for eternal life. Fold three stands for our fallen veterans. Fold four is for the One who guides us in peace and war. Fold five is for our country and the sixth fold is for where our hearts lie…

She pulled away from the memory, her eyes tearing. Wiping the tears away, she looked around, trying not to be too cynical. “Hard to believe the rest of my
life begins here.”

Ducks in a Row reviewed: “Well-written and thought-provoking novel”

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When I decided to self-publish Ducks in a Row, I had plenty of occasion for self-doubt. It’s not easy putting yourself out there, but it’s a lot easier if you’ve got a publisher behind you. A publisher is verification that there’s something in the words you wrote. Somebody else read your work and found it good. Self-published authors don’t have that.

But to sell books, you have to get them reviewed so people know about them, which means asking somebody for an honest opinion about your work. I’ve done that with several reviewers and I got my first real feedback today. Check it out:

Michelle Garren Flye does not hesitate to tackle some pretty uncomfortable subjects in Ducks in a Row. This well-written and thought-provoking novel provides a realistic look into how two people who love one another can find themselves on the verge of losing everything when they stop communicating and begin taking each other for granted.

Book Reviews and More by Kathy

Many thanks to Book Reviews and More by Kathy for the honest and insightful review. I learned a little about my book from your review, and that’s got to mean something. Plus, I finally feel that putting my story out there was the right thing.

The advent of Freddie Falcon Flye: My moment outside my comfort zone.

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Yesterday I took a day off from my life as a fabulous writer of southern romance and women’s fiction, and the reason is pretty spectacular. Check him out:

freddie

Yes, that’s a cute little baby pup. He’s my birthday present. (My birthday, incidentally, is Friday.) I started out thinking I wanted a kitten for my birthday, because, honestly, I’m more of a cat person than a dog person. But then my path crossed this little pup’s, and it was love at first sight. Seriously, I fell in love with his picture. You see, he was an auction item at my kids’ school (hence the name, Freddie Falcon–named after the mascot), and I handled putting auction items on a Facebook page for the school. So I was ONE of the first to see Freddie’s baby picture. And I fell in love.

Here was the quandary. Freddie was not part of the silent auction. Silent auctions are easy. You pick a couple of things you’re interested in and write down your number and check back a couple of times to make sure you haven’t been outbid. Very simple for someone like me who doesn’t like to draw too much attention to herself and really isn’t comfortable at all in the limelight. I know what you’re saying. “Oh, come on. She writes romances. She takes stuff from her head, writes it down and publishes it for other people to read. And then she asks us to buy it. Now she wants us to believe she doesn’t really want us to pay attention to her?”

Yeah. But that’s different. It really is. Most of the time when I’m writing, it’s not like it’s coming from me at all. I mean, my heroines couldn’t be any different from me. I went from writing Alicia (Where the Heart Lies), who has to be my most courageous heroine to-date and way better of a person than me, to Cady (Ducks in a Row), a deeply flawed woman who is extremely selfish and someone I hope I’ll never be. Cady was fun to write, and I won’t deny I have some of her same foibles, but at times I really didn’t like her very much. And I wondered more than once if Alicia was a little too perfect. Her only real flaw was self-doubt.

So you can see that I don’t write my life story when I write. These characters are not me, and I always feel like they are the ones in the limelight. Live auctions require active participation and if you win a sought-after item, it’s you people are paying attention to. But I was in love with this little dog. What to do? I made a resolution to step outside my comfort zone. I try to do that every now and then anyway, so it’s nothing new, but this was really terrifying for me.

As luck would have it, I left the auction for a moment on an errand and came back after Freddie’s lot came up. I walked in, stood there frozen at the sight of the puppy picture I’d fallen so hard for on the screen. Moment of truth. Did I dare? My heart was pounding in my throat, I stood at the back of the auction, sick to my stomach, terrified, as the auctioneer called for bids. Then something in me snapped into place and my arm went up with my bid card. Oh my God, I did it!

But now I was in for it. The bids went on and the auctioneer called out again. I raised my hand, half afraid I was going to fall over in the too-high heels I’d worn. I longed for flipflops or even flats. I’m standing there in a cocktail dress in high heels participating in a live auction. Was this really me? I don’t wear cocktail dresses, and the only heels I wear are on my cowboy boots. My head whirled.

And then it came down to me and one other bidder. A couple of friends came to stand next to me for support. Maybe the other bidder loved that puppy, too. Probably she did. The parents of the kids who go to this school are wonderful people. No matter who bought him, he was going to be pampered and loved and played with. All these thoughts rushed through my pounding brain and I realized I’d lost track of the bidding. I whispered to my closest friend: Am I the high bidder? Not yet, she hissed back. My hand went up and Freddie was mine.

I am not joking when I tell you I still hadn’t recovered when they brought him to me and I held him for the first time, but the panic went away. I’d done it, and although it might seem like a small thing to anyone else, it felt like a huge triumph to me.

And that’s why I took yesterday off from almost everything. Everything except playing with my kids and my new dog, that is. We’ll call it a breathing moment.

Do travel mugs equal e-readers? Only in my world.

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I may be a romance writer, but I’m also a coffee lover, and today I’m home, drinking coffee out of my favorite mug. It’s a big thick one with Minnie Mouse on it. I don’t like it because it has Minnie Mouse on it, although I love all things Disney. I like this mug because coffee tastes better out of it than any other coffee mug I’ve ever tried.

I can’t always kick back and drink my coffee at home, though. Most days I’m on the run, delivering kids to various dental or doctor appointments, grocery shopping, volunteering at the school. You know, all the things that keep us moms out of trouble. For those days, I need a travel mug. One problem. Coffee does NOT taste the same out of a travel mug. Want proof? I have a cupboard full of travel mugs and I don’t like any of them as much as I do my Minnie Mouse mug. Have a look:

Romance writer's travel mug collection

You’d think one of those mugs would work for me, wouldn’t you? To be fair, these are my favorites and the ones you’re most likely to catch me with. In fact, despite my tendency to leave things behind, I’ve managed to hold onto a couple of these for years. See that pink one with the lip prints on it? That one’s from a school trip my son took to Washington, D.C., three years ago. I have left that mug everywhere, but I always go back for it, because the coffee doesn’t taste half bad when I drink from it. The two Margaritaville mugs are my most recent acquisitions. I just bought them on my vacation last week in Myrtle Beach (remember the gators?). You see, I’m still on my quest to find the perfect travel mug because none of these match up to my good old-fashioned Minnie Mouse.

So how did I go from thinking about travel mugs to e-readers? Simple. People keep asking me when my novels will all be out in print. Even now when most of the people who will read my novels actually do have an e-reader or at least a smart-phone with a Kindle app. But I get it. Reading a novel on an electronic screen isn’t the same as holding the book in your hands. So yeah, now that I’ve actually held one of my books in my hands (Ducks in a Row), I get it. I know now why people self-publish instead of looking for an independent electronic publisher. That doesn’t mean that I’m not still looking for electronic publishers. But it does mean that when I get a chance to publish in print, I’m going to take it. So look for Weeds & Flowers to be out there soon. But for now, I leave you with this lovely image:

Romance and coffee

Gathering raw material.

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I’m on vacation, which means I’m not writing, but I’m not just gathering rosebuds. As a writer of romantic fiction set (mostly) in the South, I’m always doing research. I’m gathering material. Raw material. Very raw, some of it. For instance, yesterday, I saw alligators. Enormous alligators. Some of them with heads as large as my five-year-old daughter and tails as long as me. Here’s a sample:

Very large alligators.

Very large alligators.

I was in awe. Very impressive. I tend to put things that impress me into my stories, so you probably shouldn’t be surprised if gators figure into a future storyline pretty prominently. I also saw some other rather impressive reptiles in the scaly flesh. I’ve admired the king cobra for a long time. I used to draw pictures of them on my notebooks at school. I thought they were badass. Seeing one in person did nothing to dispell that image for me, either. To quote me: “Oh my God, that’s all one snake.”

Yes. It's all one snake.

King Cobra

I can’t quite figure out how to fit a cobra into one of my southern romances, but an equally impressive and much more likely alternative might be the cottonmouth or water moccasin. As luck would have it, a few tanks down from the cobra, I encountered one of these, thankfully with a wall of glass between us.

Water Moccasin

Water Moccasin

I couldn’t take my eyes off this one, but in spite of the glass between us, I didn’t dare get too close, either. I’ve grown up around snakes and I’ve always been warned to stay away from all of them, but the cottonmouth is the one that I’ve heard the worst stories about. The rattlesnake warns you, the copperhead hides from you, but the cottonmouth will come after you if you piss him off.

So how can I fit all these cold-blooded reptiles into my love stories? I can’t swear I can. I already had a heroine do battle with a copperhead in Where the Heart Lies. (I did enjoy writing that scene, which was inspired by finding a copperhead in my own backyard. I didn’t kill it, by the way. My husband did.) I do know a warm fire feels much warmer after you’ve been outside on a cold day, though, and it might be interesting to find out how hot and bright the flame of romance might burn against a colder backdrop than what I usually use.

Might. Remember: raw material.

Dorothy Parker returns!

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It’s release day at last for a book I’ve been looking forward to for a long time! I’m never sure how to classify my friend Ellen Meister’s novels. Chick lit is far too light and women’s literature sounds too serious for books containing Ellen’s particular brand of witty humor. All I can say is that if you’re looking for an entertaining read that’ll make you laugh, cry and enlighten you all at the same time, you’ve got to read Ellen’s novels, and this newest one is a great place to start. Check it out here:

farewelldp

Congratulations, Ellen, and good luck with this one! Now I’ve just got to convince myself to go work instead of burying myself in my Kindle!

Speaking of best laid plans: The winners of my book giveaway are…

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I have every excuse in the book for not getting back on here to let you guys know who the winners of my book/proof giveaway are, but I’m not going to get into that. Suffice it to say I’ve been using my energy up wisely over the past couple of days. 🙂 To make it up to you, I’ve decided to make you ALL winners! If you left me a comment and would like a book, I’m going to give you one. They’ll all be either Proof 2s or 3s, so the only thing different in each one will be the bio and a couple pages of review blurbs.

Problem here. I “know” everybody who left a comment, and I’ll be getting in touch with you electronically, but unless you live in my town (and I think only one of you does!), you’re gonna have to send me a mailing address to get the book. Email is great, but I haven’t figured out how to squish my book into an electronic pulse that’ll travel to your computer and reconfigure itself. 🙂 At any rate, if you read this, email me at michellegflye@gmail.com, and I’ll get the book in the mail! I wouldn’t leave my mailing address in the comments section here, though. Judging by the spam comments I sometimes get, there is the possibility that not everyone who stops by is a friendly!

Love you guys! Thanks for making my Print Birthday a happy one!

Print Party Preview Time! Plus, enter to win your own PRINT copy of Ducks in a Row!

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Don’t forget to leave me a comment to enter to win one of three proof copies I’m giving away! In the meantime, here’s an excerpt! (Warning: Adult language. Just once—or twice—but still.)

Cam watched her sister leave knowing she had a fight on her hands and it was her fault. She glanced around at the dirty dishes still on the table and knew she should begin loading them into the dishwasher, but she had something to do first and she needed her strength to do it. Cam glanced at the clock on her cell phone. Six o’clock. Stan would be done with work, probably at the bar having a drink with some of the boys. She bit her lip and decided it was time. She needed to let him know she wasn’t home and wouldn’t be coming back.

He answered on the second ring, laughter in his voice and the sound of a jukebox in the background. “Hey, baby, where are you? It’s payday and we’re celebrating. Come on down.”

“I’m not there.” She wondered what it was about him that made her so tongue-tied, even now. Nearly a year after they’d met and begun dating, the sound of his voice could melt her knees, short out her brain and make it almost impossible to speak a complete sentence.

He laughed. “I know you’re not here, babe. I’m trying to fix that. C’mon down, I want you.”

I want you. The words echoed in her heart. “No, you don’t get it, Stan. I’m not there and I’m not coming back. I’m here now and I don’t want to see you again.” She closed her eyes with the effort of saying the last words. How could she sound so heartless and indecipherable at the same time?

After a moment of listening to the jukebox play, in which she pictured him sitting at a table with a beer in front of him, his chair tilted back and his long legs splayed in front of him, he finally spoke. “Hold on a sec.”

She heard voices and a door slamming and then silence. She knew he was standing in the middle of the dirt and gravel parking lot of the little dive bar he loved in Brunswick, Georgia. She knew he was holding his cell phone against his ear, searching for a way to reply to her. “Cam, what’s going on?”

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep pretending I can be your little wife.”

“Did I ask you to be my wife?”

“You know what I mean. I’m sick of the whole thing. I had to get away.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at my sister’s in North Carolina.”

After a moment’s silence, he burst out laughing. “You don’t want to be my wife, but you run away to suburban hell? Are you serious? I’ve heard you talk about your sister and her husband and how uptight they are. Cam, are you feeling all right?”

“Cut it out.”

“No, seriously, check and see if you have a fever. I’m really worried about you, babe.”

“Cut…it…out! I’m serious. I’m not going to stay here permanently. Just ‘til I figure out what to do next.”

“I’ll fucking tell you what to do next. Come home. Come home now. I don’t want to live without you, and I’m pretty sure you don’t mean any of these things you’re saying. Come home and tell me what’s really wrong.”

If only she could. But it would ruin everything and she’d just end up back here without him, anyway. At least this way she could do it on her own terms.
“Cam?” His voice was stern. “Come home.”

“I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes again. She hadn’t meant to say that. She hadn’t meant to apologize, as if she had anything to really be sorry for, even if she did. “I can’t.”

She hung up and thought about him standing alone in the parking lot. He’d cuss, he might throw the phone and break it, and then he’d go inside and get drunk. Stinking drunk. Maybe he’d sleep with that little barmaid that’d been flirting with him for a while. Cam tried not to care.

Happy Print Party! Welcome me to the world of books actually IN print and win a free proof copy!

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Yay! It’s that day…Print Day! Capital letters, please. Surely an important day in my career, even if it is the result of self-publishing. Today, you can buy a novel by ME with MY name on the cover! Yippee! Have a peek:

Ducks_Cover

So far, it’s for sale at CreateSpace and Amazon. So go buy it now! Or if you’d like to go the more economical way (or just flat out prefer ebooks like I do), check out the Kindle version. If you like it, leave me a review, please! I love hearing from readers. You can even email me your praises at michellegflye@gmail.com.

All that said, how about a giveaway to celebrate? In the course of perfecting my book (and you’re still going to find editing mistakes in it, trust me!), I went through three proofs. Proof 1 doesn’t even have page numbers, and one of the characters is misnamed (oops!). Proof 2 is pretty close to as perfect as I got it, however, I did change the back pages and my bio a bit for Proof 3. To celebrate my book’s print birthday, I’m giving away one signed copy of each proof. All you have to do is leave me a comment right here!

I’ll be back later to give you a little taste of the book, but in the meantime, here’s the blurb to whet your appetite:

Cady Summers thinks she has all her ducks in a row: great house, beautiful family. Then her estranged twin sister Cam shows up…pregnant. Envious of her sister’s condition and lonely with a teenage daughter and a workaholic husband, Cady’s life no longer seems to have the perfect order she has always cherished.

A recovering drug addict and absentee mother of two, Cam Taylor has never had any order in her life. Afraid of his reaction to her pregnancy, Cam flees the man she loves, seeking refuge in the only home she still knows.

Can the love between the two sisters provide a healing balm for the wounds of her scarred marriage or will Cady seek solace in the arms of another man? Can the reunion with her sister give Cam the courage she needs to face the man she loves or will she let her past mistakes come between them?